Wednesday, 28 December 2011

Sukhajyoti Sinha: A tribute

Educationist and writer Sukhajyoti Sinha breathed her last on December 13, 2011 in her Guwahati residence. Born on October 21, 1925 in Sylhet district in undivided India (now Bangladesh), she had joined the Assam education department after completion of master’s degree in English and political science, L.L.B and BT. She was the daughter of Late Rai Saheb Choudhury Singha and late Rani Basanta Kumari Devi. In 1979, she got British fellowship that enabled her to study in Edinburg University and Manchester University. After returning from England, she had authored a travelogue, Mor Bilat Bhraman.

The outspoken and extrovert writer and educationist had been involved in some social organizations, including the Bishnupriya Manipuri Mahila Samiti, Guwahati.

Her largesse, when it comes for the cause of the society, is exemplary. The Bishnupriya Manipuri Writers’ Forum (BMWF) was on the lookout for an office accommodation a few years back. It was late Sukhojyoti Sinha who offered on her own a room in her house at Silpukhuri for use as BMWR office (purely as a temporary arrangement), and that enabled the forum to get its registration done without much trouble. This is not all. As and when the Forum was in the need of a venue for holding its various literary and cultural programmes, she used to offer the rooms of an English medium school located on the premises of her residence at Tarun Nagar in Guwahati and its microphone set free of cost. This was writer Sukhajyoti Sinha, generosity personified.

In her death, the BMWF and many other social organizations in the community have lost an adviser, a well-wisher, a writer and a patron. The women in the community have lost a leader who had led them from the front on many occasions. In her personal life, she did what she thought just and must without bothering about what others in the community would say. On personal front, she could prove her determination by facing many an odd with a brave front. On my part, I have to bear the pain for not being able to publish a cover story in the Sunday magazine of a publication house where I was working over the years. This is despite an assurance from my part.